Jamie (Internet remix) • In which I complain too much, as always

In which I complain too much, as always

When I went to Pittsburgh in September, I got a ticket for lapsed registration. It wasn’t actually lapsed, but whatever. The costs was to be $125, and it was going to cost more than that to fight it, so it just wasn’t worth the effort. I put the ticket aside and forgot to pay it—of course.

I sent a money order last week because I’m going to be driving through Indiana this week to go back to Pittsburgh for Christmas, and on Friday, I confirmed they’d gotten the payment. So imagine my surprise when I got home Friday to find a notice that my license was going to be suspended in Iowa for non-payment of that ticket.

No big deal, right? After a short freakout, I realized I’d just have to call on Monday to get a receipt from Indiana and this would all go away.

But when I called the court, I was told they don’t give out receipts, that I should have sent a self-addressed stamped envelope if I wanted one, and that it would take at least three weeks to inform Iowa that I’d paid—by which time my license was suspended.

I convinced an Iowa DOT worker to call Indiana, and they did, eventually, send a receipt, so it’s finally taken care of, but why on earth wouldn’t they help me?

I realize I’m to blame for all of this, and mostly I’m glad that the Iowa DOT folks were willing to go above and beyond, but I just don’t understand why the Indiana court employees weren’t willing to do the bare minimum to make sure my license didn’t get suspended because of slow bureaucracy.

TL;DR: My license was going to be suspended, but now it’s not. I still feel the need to bitch, though.